Nucleocapsid Specific Diagnostics for the Detection of Divergent SARS-CoV-2 Variants.

ABSTRACT: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple waves of SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged. Of particular concern is the omicron variant, which harbors 28 mutations in the spike glycoprotein receptor binding and N-terminal domains relative to the ancestral strain. The high mutability of SARS-CoV-2 therefore poses significant hurdles for development of universal assays that rely on spike-specific immune detection. To address this, more conserved viral antigens need to be targeted. In this work, we comprehensively demonstrate the use of nucleocapsid (N)-specific detection across several assays using previously described nanobodies C2 and E2. We show that these nanobodies are highly sensitive and can detect divergent SARS-CoV-2 ancestral, delta and omicron variants across several assays. By

SUBMITTER: Isaacs A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9226548 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature